‘I want to know’: Mate’s plea over fatal chopper crash
What he found that day will haunt him forever. Now the pilot is breaking his silence as Matt Wright learns his fate.
EXCLUSIVE
He found his best mate dead near the wreckage of a helicopter. Now, after enduring a silent agony, pilot Michael Burbidge is demanding authorities expose the complete truth about the crocodile egg collecting mission that went catastrophically wrong.
In an emotional interview with news.com.au at his Darwin-based helipad, Mr Burbidge said he was incensed that the investigation into the cause of Chris “Willow” Wilson’s death had been overshadowed by the events that unfolded afterwards.
“I want to know what f**king happened to Christopher it’s that simple. I want to know, his family wants to know. Put aside the bullsh**t politics and say what’s happened,” Mr Burbidge said.
His interview comes as Outback Wrangler Matt Wright prepares to learn his fate after being found guilty in the Northern Territory Supreme Court of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the seven-month period following the fatal chopper crash.
“The evidence shows the machine ran out of fuel. If the police have some other miraculous evidence to the contrary then give it to us because I want to know what happened to my best mate. Enough with innuendo and opinion, focus on the facts.”
Mr Burbidge was piloting another chopper on the crocodile egg-collecting mission on February 28, 2022 when Wilson was killed and his pilot Sebastian Robinson was seriously injured.
When the airwaves went unusually quiet, Mr Burbidge left his team and circled back to find the other team.
“I hadn’t heard anything on the radio but they were doing three separate nests so I thought ‘oh maybe we’ve just missed them’,” Burbidge said, fighting back tears.
“I pulled everyone off. I said, ‘You guys stay here, I’m gonna go back and just see if I can find out what’s going on’. And I went back. I started backtracking so they had three separate nests to do and I went to what should have been their last nest. I didn’t find anything, went to the next nest and then obviously …… found what I found.”
The moments stretched into an unbearable eternity as Mr Burbidge realised quickly his mate was dead, the weight of a life extinguished heavy in his arms.
He layed bubble wrap from the helicopter over his best mate’s body, then tended to the seriously injured Robinson. Rescuers later told him his first aid was what kept Robinson alive.
Hours went by before anyone else came.
The death and devastation he bore witness to that day is etched into his mind, continuing to shadow his every waking moment.
“He was like a little brother to me,” Mr Burbidge said.
“He just had everyone wanting to be around him, he just wanted to see everyone do well.
“He just, I don’t know, he had something about him.
“He had so many different friends and people around him. I’m not a people person I stick to myself, but he just is a good man from a good family … And to see someone like that just lying there, you know. It’s pretty sad.”
Later Wright, the owner of the crashed chopper, NT cop Neil Melon and Mick Burns arrived at the scene.
Police did not send emergency resources to the crash site.
As the men frantically assessed the scene Melon handed Burbidge his dead mate’s phone.
Mr Burbidge would later tell a court he destroyed the phone because there were things on it he knew Willow wouldn’t want his wife to see.
“I thought I was doing the right thing for my mate. In the eyes of the law I wasn’t, so you know what? I take full responsibility for that,” Mr Burbidge said.
“In accordance with the law I did the wrong thing. I owned up, I pleaded guilty.”
Burbidge was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice and destroying evidence and copped a fine.
Melon was charged with destroying evidence and other unrelated offences and served jail time.
Wright was accused of lying to crash investigators about the amount of fuel in the machine, of trying to get Robinson to falsify flying hours, and of asking a friend to “torch” the helicopter’s maintenance release.
Wright was found guilty on two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice. He is due to be sentenced today and has lodged an all grounds appeal.
While Mr Burbidge has accepted his conviction, he is furious authorities were focused only on the aftermath of the crash rather than what caused Chris Wilson’s death.
An ATSB report into the cause of the crash – which is protected by the Transport Information Safety Act and therefore could not be used as evidence in Wright’s Supreme Court trial – found that the helicopter was “likely not refuelled at the en route fuel depot, which was about three quarters of the way between the departure location on the outskirts of Darwin and a clearing near King River where the helicopter and crew were to commence crocodile egg collecting”.
The report also found the pilot did not identify the reducing fuel state before the helicopter’s engine stopped in flight due to fuel exhaustion.
The ATSB also found that the “pilot’s exposure to cocaine within the previous few days increased the likelihood of fatigue, depression and inattention” however it said there was “insufficient evidence to determine whether these effects occurred”.
The trial heard additional evidence separate to the ATSB report of drug use and evidence the chopper ran out of fuel.
Despite repeated requests from news.com.au, the Northern Territory police will not confirm whether or not the investigation into the cause of the crash has concluded.
No-one has been charged with any offences over the crash itself.
“This should be about Chris. I want to know what happened to Chris it’s that f***ing simple.
“It just annoys me, there is an investigative body that has thoroughly looked at what’s happened, pulled the engine apart, done all these tests, found the machine ran out of fuel.”
Mr Burbidge said Mr Robinson was a good pilot and it was hard for anyone involved that day to believe he had run out of fuel - but that’s what the report found.
Timothy Luck, an egg collector on the same mission, testified in Wright’s trial that he was “100 percent sure” he refuelled the helicopter to the top at Mt Borradaile, even mentioning that fuel spilt over the side.
The defence team presented evidence and arguments suggesting that the helicopter likely ran out of fuel because it wasn’t refuelled properly, claiming Luck is either mistaken or not telling the truth. They noted that if the helicopter had been refueled by Luck, it would have had enough fuel for the flight.
The official investigation report concluded that fuel exhaustion was the probable cause of the crash, which conflicts with Luck’s testimony. Two ATSB investigators confirmed there was no fuel at the crash site and a Careflight first responder “reported that there was no smell or indication of fuel”.
The ATSB and court evidence also showed there was no fuel pump available for Mr Luck to use at Mount Borradaile, as the other two machines’ pumps had already been packed up.
Mr Luck’s evidence in court was that the reason he refuelled IDW was because Willow and Seb were pulling the dual controls out but the court heard from other witnesses that the dual controls remained in place in the helicopter until the staging area just before the crash occurred.
Out of the eight people present, one is deceased, and Sebastian Robinson doesn’t have any memories, only Mr Luck remembers IDW being refuelled.
Robinson told the court he has no memory but said he knows “in my heart” his helicopter did not run out of fuel.
During an early interview with the ATSB Mr Burbidge initially told investigators “we all fuelled up and left” but later when asked again if he did see the refuelling, he said “no I just assumed because that’s what we were there to do and that’s what we always do”.
Innuendos and rumours swirled in the town that the men had gone to the scene to cover up evidence of wrongdoing or were lying about what happened were outrageous to Mr Burbidge.
“I didn’t even know there was gonna be anything at that point in time and with the ATSB, I tried to help as much as I could, give them as much information, I offered to take them back to places and do things,” he said.
“All this innuendo and rumour and bulls**t. It should be about Christopher. That’s all I was worried about.”
BROTHERHOOD
The crocodile egg collecting crew were more than just colleagues, they were family.
Mates who stood shoulder-to-shoulder, celebrated life’s milestones with shared beers at weddings, and became godfathers for each other’s children.
That day, the bonds of brotherhood, once thought unbreakable, were broken.
Mr Burbidge said Willow would be “pissed off” that the crash had blown apart his friendship group, damaging relationships to the point of no repair.
“He would be dead set pissed, he would be saying ‘what is wrong with you idiots, move on. Get along’. He would definitely be getting angry about how things have played out.
“He would be so disappointed he doesn’t get to see his boys grow up. He lived for his boys and the relationship he had with his mother and father was just incredible.
“He would be really upset about how everything has played out. Friendships that are gone for good. Yep he would be really pissed off.”
Sebastian Robinson has been contacted for comment.
In court the 32-year-old admitted lying to air crash investigators and NT Police about falsifying flight-hour records and disconnecting Hobbs meters.
He said he was worried that he might be blamed for the crash or that he would lose his pilot’s licence.
He said he was “panicking” and “scared.”
Robinson agreed he must have “intentionally disconnected” the sling line from the helicopter and Wilson fell about 25 metres to the ground, as ascertained by air crash investigators.
Wilson’s wife has also been contacted for comment.
Originally published as ‘I want to know’: Mate’s plea over fatal chopper crash
